大象传媒

continued from 8a

Our unofficial break knocked a bi t more off our working time and we then returned to the little room to see if there was anything worth scrounging. A quick search rewarded us with two brooms, both almost without bristles, and with them we made a pretence of sweeping the floor. After a few minutes' assiduous and deliberately noisy sweeping we poked our heads cautiously round the angle of the door to see if anyone was watching. One of the cooks was standing with his back to the stove, keeping an eye on the room we were working in, and we knew immediately that he knew what we were up to. He had had fatigue men in the cookhouse often enough before. "Looking for something?" he asked, suspiciously. "Any more tea?" I asked. It was the only thing I could think of. "Plenty. Help yourselves."
So we each had another pint of tea, which we didn't want; but what goes in must come out, and dashing to the lavatory to get rid of the surplus tea killed a bit more time.
"This won't do, Charlie," I growled, after exporting more of the unwanted tea. "He's wise to us."
"I've got an idea, Doug," he replied, after a thoughtful pause. "You go and sweep the passage while I keep watch. When the coast is clear I'll whistle 'K' and you can nip into the pantry and grab what you can, but when I whistle 'Vic Eddie' you'll know he's looking." (The letter 'K' is the Morse signal meaning 'Carry On' and the letters 'V' and 'E' run together, VE, mean 'I Have A Message For You.')
"Good idea," I agreed, and I started to 'sweep' the passage. For perhaps half a minute I plied the almost-bald broom industriously in full view of the cook while Charlie splashed water about and rolled an empty tin across the floor to create an impression of working hard. As he worked he whistled "South Of The Border" quietly to himself. There was a slight pause, then the letter 'K' was inserted into the tune.
I immediately nipped into the pantry and grabbed the first thing on the nearest shelf. It was a tin of Libby's Milk, but in my haste I failed to notice that it had already been punctured at the top and as I grabbed it the contents spurted down the front of my denims. I replaced the tin hastily on the shelf and wiped the milk off my denims as best I could with my handkerchief and grabbed another tin, a good one this time, and dropped it down the top of my trousers. I was about to grab something else when Charlie inserted dot-dot- dot-dash-dot into his whistling. The signal VE. Taking up the broom again I swept a conveniently-left pile of dust from the pantry into the passage and added it to the little pile already left there for the purpose.
The cook fell for it and I pretended to sweep anything from anywhere while Charlie continued his tuneless whistling as he kept a watchful eye on the cook. Then dash-dot-dash, the letter 'K', was inserted into the tune and I was able to pop into the pantry again. Another tin of milk went down my trousers, and a quick glance showed me where the tea chest was. Handful after handful of tea went into the paper bags brought especially for the purpose, and when the bags were full I stuffed them into my pockets and padded them flat. A 'VE' in the middle of "The Lady In Red" warned me to keep out of sight. I could not make a pretence of sweeping the floor a second time, so I remained quiet until 'K' was introduced again. That gave me the chance to pass the tea surreptitiously to Charlie before returning to get some sugar. As I had no more bags left I had to fill my pockets. That little job completed I whistled an interrogative 'VE', to which Charlie replied with an affirmative 'K'.
Having scrounged all we could without being too obvious about it we asked the cook-sergeant for permission to fallout. We had patted our pockets as flat as possible to minimise the bulges made by the tea and the sugar, and I had to draw in my stomach to lessen the bulge of the tins of milk. The light in the cookhouse was not all that bright, though, and the cook failed to notice anything amiss. He readily gave us permission to go and we lost no time in going.
The lads were delighted with our loot. The tea was emptied into a large tin they kept for the purpose and the sugar was emptied out of my pockets -fluff and all -into another tin. I produced the milk from somewhere down below and stood it beside the tea and the sugar. We were rewarded with cigarettes.
We had a real bean feast that evening. Ken, Wally, 'Dude', and I made hooks and lines and went down to the quay, where we spent a very pleasant session landing dabs. No fishing in Blighty was ever like the fishing we did to catch those dabs. Our lines were lengths of string and our hooks bent pins. The bait was dampened flour rolled into tiny balls and stuck on to the pins. Our lines were dropped into the water and waited for the dabs to come. The water was so clear we could easily see them coming, so if a little one swam towards the bait we would lift the line out of the water and drop it in a different place, where the dabs were bigger. Wally was not quite alert and landed a very small one, much to his disgust, and to avenge his frustration he tied a piece of blue wool loosely around it near the tail just to see what would happen. The poor little beggar lost steerageway immediately and sank slowly and helplessly to the bottom.
Having landed enough fish to provide us with a substantial supper we returned to the hut, where some hot tea was soon ready for us. A petrol tin cut in half long ways served as a frying pan, because our mess tins were considered too small to hold much fish; and Albert put in a big dollop of margarine and some bacon fat he had managed to scrounge from the dining-hall at breakfast; and when we had decapitated the fish and slit their stomachs (if anything as flat as a dab can be said to have a stomach) we placed them in the pan.
In a matter of minutes everyone was busy tucking in. "Dude" produced a loaf of bread from his home-made bedside cupboard and cut each of us a typical army doorstep. I remembered he had complained to the Orderly Sergeant at breakfast that there was no bread on the table!
It was only natural that just retribution should reward our scrounging. Wally was the one who found out, when he took a good swig at his tea.
"This sugar isn't", he spluttered, with tea dribbling distastefully from his lips.
"Isn't what?" I asked.
"Isn't sugar."
"Don't talk daft. If it's sugar, it's sugar." "Well, this isn't. Taste it and see."
I tasted it. He was right. The sugar was salt!

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